often seen in the street without a hat

Huh, I just thought Marian Keyes books were Irish, rather than Oirish. The Irishness tended to be in the syntax and vocabulary, rather than in any phonetic spelling or anything, and there were plenty of things that I wouldn't have got as Irish if I hadn't lived in Ireland and known lots of Irish people. There are a few places where the chicklit stereotypes get tedious (there's definitely one where the woman who has spent 3/4 of the book angsting about her weight whilst in a bad relationship find the weight MAGICALLY DROPS OFF HER when she breaks up with the evil boyfriend), but on the whole I like them